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Chapter 202:
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Amity Park had more than its fair share of graveyards, even if one didn't count the old pre-Columbian burial ground that had been discovered ten or so miles out and which was usually guarded by near-fanatical archaeologists.
(Those same archaeologists were at this very moment engaged in trying to beat the guts out of an unfortunate, but entirely deserving, GIW employee.)
The first settlers in Elmerton had buried their dead across the river. There were several pioneer graveyards, from when the area had been a popular stop for wagon trains. A small Civil War battle had been fought near the town, and all the dead had to go somewhere. The government had bought land just outside town for the county's dead from World War I and II, and there was a large veteran's memorial nearby. People who had only passed through Amity Park briefly occasionally arranged to be buried there, as if they could sense the thinness of reality there. There were big graveyards, little graveyards, private graveyards, public graveyards, memorial homes, columbariums, and a mausoleum.
As Harriet was escorted by them, they were waking up. Many of the newly-risen ghosts were nothing more than mist on the air, seeping up from under headstones and behind plaques. Others, like her current companions, were better defined, more like the ghosts she had come to know. Some stayed still, or drifted, as if dazed, but more of them were moving purposefully, though not in the same direction Harriet was going.
"Does everybody become a ghost, after all?" she said, whispering. Maddie had told her otherwise, but this seemed like a lot.
"Oh, I don't think so, ma'am," said Miles. "Look, it can't be more than one in twenty." He pointed at a nearby group of graves and started counting. "Yeah, I think that works out. Don't worry, though, I'm sure you'll become a ghost when you die!" This last was said brightly.
"How do you know?" asked Harriet.
"I don't. It's just a feeling."
"Right," said Harriet. She shifted, turning to look back over her shoulder, panning her camera around as she did so. The ghostly blue shield had risen over the treetops and was glinting brightly in the sunlight. "Feelings."
"Well, I haven't been awake for all that long, ma'am. Feelings are all I've got on this situation."
"And orders," snapped the still-invisible commander.
"Right, sir. Those too. See that building, ma'am? That's where you'll be positioned."
He was pointing at nothing. Harriet frowned.
"What building?"
"It's invisible," said another one of the soldier ghosts who had joined them. "I remember. I died last year. It's a ghost building. Urban legend kind of thing. Like, someone wanted to put a skyscraper there, but the plans fell through."
Well. That just filled Harriet with confidence.
"Will I even be able to get in?" she asked. No one answered.
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The ghosts put their hands on the shield, holding it in place, shoring it up with their own power. The bubble took on the appearance of stained glass as it took on all the different colors of ectoplasm. Danny floated down to the ground, wanting to conserve energy.
The humans watched him warily. That was fair. He had essentially abandoned them to a bunch of lunatics for the past… however long he had been gone. No matter that it wasn't his fault and that he didn't want to do it. Results were what mattered in this situation.
Actually, on second glance, a good number of the more serious cultists were genuflecting or otherwise doing religious-looking stuff, like kneeling, or praying, or tracing shapes in the air or over their bodies, which… yeah. Danny didn't want to focus on that.
Halfheartedly, he raised a hand.
"Phantom?" asked a woman, stepping forward. It took him far too long to recognize her as Principal Ishiyama. She looked different out of her normal suit, away from the school.
"Yep, that's me," he confirmed.
She took a deep breath. "Is Kwan with you?"
Danny blinked a few times. "No," he said, "but he's safe. Or he should be. We got separated."
"Where?"
"Um," said Danny. "Ghost Zone. With allies of mine. Sort of allies. Part of the ghost government. Sort of."
Ishiyama did not look comforted. Neither did any of the other parents that had pushed their way to the front of the crowd surrounding Danny. Wait, if the crowd was surrounding Danny, wouldn't they be pushing their way to the middle of the crowd?
He flinched as a missile hit the shield. Even with the ghosts helping, he was still providing most of the power and structure of the shield. The crowd muttered, drawing in.
"Hey," he said, "um. Where's everyone not here? I mean, like, kids and people who can't fight."
"The ghosts helped us hide them," said Wes, pushing through the crowd. "In these weird space pockets."
Danny made a face. "I thought I said to stay on the roof."
"Yeah, well, that's stupid. Now, where's my cousin?"
"Hannah? Ghost Zone. With the others."
"Where in the Ghost Zone?"
"With, uh, part of the Ghost Zone government. Sort of," repeated Danny. "It's more complicated than that."
"Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why is my cousin, and everyone else, I guess, with a part of the ghost government?" Wes waved his hand impatiently.
Danny noted that everyone seemed more interested in his answer than the vicious ongoing attack on the shield. Well, it was nice to know that people had faith in him and the other ghosts.
However… "Did you guys have an escape plan, by the way? Because I don't know how long we'll be able to keep this shield going."
"We were going to evacuate into the Ghost Zone using the portal," said Ishiyama. "But with everyone else cut off…" She looked past Danny, out over the town.
"Ah," said Danny. "That's not a bad idea. You guys evacuate. I assume that some of these guys," he waved vaguely at the ghosts overhead, "were going to take you? Make sure you didn't fall into the River of Revulsion or anything like that?"
"Yeah," said Wes.
"Well, you should go."
Silence.
"Please? I'll make sure everyone else is safe, one way or another."
"How?" asked Wes, bluntly.
"I've got reinforcements coming. But it'll be a bit before they get here."
"What reinforcements. From where? The Ghost Zone?"
"No," said Danny. Maybe he could have summoned the 'thrall army' Clockwork had told him about, but others were closer. "The graveyards. Not all ghosts stay awake all the time. Some of them just… sort of come back and wait? It's easy to do that here, because of the portal."
There were murmurs through the crowd. Some people shifted. But most of them…
"We're going to stay," said Wes. "We've fought this far."
Danny swallowed. He didn't like that, but he could respect it. "Okay," he said. "Just… be ready."
"Hey! Phantom!" called someone from deep within the crowd. Danny recognized him as a Casper High alum, just a few years older than he was. "What's with the crown and the cape?"
Oh. He'd forgotten about his costume. "Long story," said Danny.
"Lord Phantom has ascended to his rightful place as King of the Hereafter! Soon he shall lead us to paradise, as it was foretold!"
Danny glared at the cultist. How did the they do that?
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It turned out that Harriet could get into the invisible building, and that it wasn't invisible when you were in it. Getting in was bizarre, requiring a ritual worthy of urban legends, and the interior made her short hairs stand on end, but, ultimately, it looked like a building. It even had elevators.
Harriet wasn't entirely sure what she had been expecting. Something more ghostly? Something more fantastic?
The soldiers led her to the top of the building, which had clearly been intended as a recreational area once upon a time. It was overgrown with ivy that glowed and pulsed, and the pool was dry.
Overhead, the creeping blue shield shimmered against the sky. The hole over the city was growing smaller, and, from this superior perspective, Harriet could see that it was centered over Fentonworks. Because of course it was. Fentonworks might not have been the physical center of Amity Park, but it was certainly the spiritual center.
Also, there seemed to be a shield around Fentonworks itself. Interesting.
Harriet made quick work of setting up her big camera, especially with Miles's help. He had been assigned as her assistant when she'd been a war correspondent.
She pointed it at the shield around Fentonworks and all the force that the GIW had brought to bear against it.
This was one heck of an exclusive.
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Adrestia examined the mess in front of Phantom's portal.
"Is it usually like this?" she asked.
"How'm I supposed to know?" asked Alex. "It isn't like we ever hang out here."
"You'd think Phantom would take better care, though, wouldn't you?" asked Tess, folding his arms. "He seems like the kind of goody-two-shoes to keep a place neat. Like Astraea."
"Maybe it's to keep people out," suggested Alex. "Like, a barricade, or a fortification or whatever. He's got some problems with people fightin' him, right?"
"Alex," said Meg, always the voice of reason. "It's on fire. He's an ice ghost. D'you really think he's gonna set his own stuff on fire?"
"Well, he can, can't he? He's got some of the pyro stuff, right?"
"But that's gotta be minor, right?" asked Meg. "I mean, otherwise we'd hear about it."
"Well, we did hear about it, didn't we? That's why we're talkin' about it," said Alex, triumphantly.
"Are we sure this's Phantom's place?" asked Tess.
"It isn't like there are a lot of other stable portals around here," said Adrestia. "Maybe those white shmucks did it, anyway. We know they came through here."
"Yeah, gross," agreed Tess.
"Now, remember," said Adrestia, "we need witnesses and stuff for both trials, the Fenton parents and the surviving white idiots, but we only need jurors for the first one."
"Uhuh. Does it matter if we take more than that?" asked Alex.
"Nah. But when you pick up Phantom's humans, ask them first. I don't think he'd be super happy with us just spiriting them away."
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Danny was shaking with exertion.
The GIW had begun bombarding the shield in earnest. Several of the ghosts, already worn from the fight, had fallen back, exhausted. Most of the ghosts living in Amity Park were not particularly powerful.
The wisps were shedding their stored energy, but it wasn't enough, not hardly, and the ectoplasm in the air was starting to get thin as more and more ghosts drew on it to supplement their powers. Danny, who had become used to the never-ending supply in the Ghost Zone, felt more than a little light-headed.
Then, too, he wasn't entirely recovered from his ordeals in the Ghost Zone. If he was being honest, he hadn't fully recovered from being hit by the Mortifier before being shot by Valerie, and after that, well, it had been one thing after another, with little respite in between. He'd gained a lot of power, but he was fragile in ways he usually wasn't.
But that wasn't what was really tripping him up. He had this feeling, this sensation, that he was doing more than he was consciously aware of. He knew about the shield, and waking the sleeping dead, but this was something else. Something big.
Danny didn't particularly care for that feeling. It meant that he wasn't in control. But he couldn't do anything about it, other that struggle with the shield.
Thankfully, Wes and the others had stopped asking questions. Some of the cultists had set up competing prayer circles but were otherwise well-behaved. Other people were laying out the dead; friends, family, neighbors, comrades-in-arms were laid out neatly, and covered with whatever was available. The GIW, if they were lucky, were hauled off to one side or left to stiffen where they lay.
An explosion shook the ground as another weapon impacted the shield. Danny groaned and clutched at his head. This was starting to hurt.
"Phantom?" said Principal Ishiyama softly. "Is there anything we can do for you?"
"Start sending people through the portal?" he asked, hopefully.
Principal Ishiyama's lips thinned, and Danny got the impression that he was about to get a lecture on why they weren't going to do that, but she was interrupted.
"What's going on here?" asked Adrestia the Inescapable.
